Read Online The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis De Bernières - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Louis De Bernières
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premonition.‘We will hold a candomble to get the lift blessed by the saints,’ said Profesor Luis, ‘and then we will get Father Garcia to bless it, and then Aurelio will bless it with the Aymara gods and the Navante gods, and then it can never crash.’ That made Misael feel better about it, but left Profesor Luis a little guilty about having played upon his superstitious susceptibilities.
Profesor Luis was disheartened, but over the next few days it was noticeable that many people were going to the edge of the cliff and gazing out over the plain. Hectoro went, and had visions of an horizon of cattle grazing on lush grasses. Don Emmanuel saw groves of avocados, reminding him that back in the village the little boys used to steal his fruit and then try to sell it back to him. Remedios saw that indeed it was a plateau, and conceived of it as a line of self-defence in the event of attack from the east, and as a place of tactical withdrawal if the assault were from the west. Doña Constanza and Gonzago went out there in the sunset, and dangled their legs over the edge. ‘Gonzito,’ she said, ‘there is a lot of privacy down there. Remember how we used to make purple earthquakes under the trees and behind the waterfall?’
‘Fine days,’ replied her lover. ‘One day we will go down there and find a place with no ants to chew our backsides, and not under a tree either, so that we are not shat upon by birds, and we will make purple earthquakes all over again, and shout as much as we like.’
‘I am sick of falling out of the hammock,’ she said, ‘even though it was amusing to begin with.’
‘One day we will make a decent bed, and one day we will go down there and have no need of one.’
And so it was that, much to his gratification, Profesor Luis found that people were coming to him and asking, ‘What do you need for this machine?’ and an improbable stockpile of heterogeneous articles began to accumulate at the edge of the precipice, some found lying about inexplicably in the mountains, some scavenged from abandoned mine shafts, some prised away from the Indians in exchange for goats and teaspoons. There were huge iron hoops with pinchbolts, lengths of cable, steel wheels, pieces of crashed military helicopter, nuts and bolts with reversed threads in old British Standard sizes, a vast windlass that had to be transported by four bulls harnessed together, pitprops so old that they had turned to stone, beams from thosebrontosaurial machines that once crushed ore with the motion of nodding donkeys, together with their gearwheels, antique block and tackles made of polished rosewood with toledo rivets embossed with coats of arms, and a separate pile of unidentifiable objects that ‘might come in useful for something’. ‘All I need now is three thousand metres of rope as thick as a man’s arm,’ announced Profesor Luis, ‘and lots of wheels from cars, with the hubs and bearings if possible.’
The latter was easy if arduous. All that one had to do was send out long expeditions to the places where there had been roads through the mountains in more prosperous times, or even to Ipasueño. At the bottom of precipices, down below hairpin bends, hidden beneath scrub, half-immersed in cataracts, were the innumerable wrecks of the vehicles of the inebriated and the unbraked. There one could find cars, trucks, lorries and coaches of all vintages and in all states of decay, many of them complete with skeletons picked clean by grateful birds, all of them inhabited by pumas and margueys, coral snakes and iguanas, except for the ones in the rivers colonised by fish and kingfishers.
It was all made easier by Doña Constanza, who, after a fierce fight with her conscience, went to Profesor Luis and coyly held out a small elongated green book. ‘I still have my chequebook,’ she said, ‘and I would like to help you to buy what you cannot find.’
Profesor Luis went with Doña Constanza and Gonzago to Ipasueño. It was
Profesor Luis was disheartened, but over the next few days it was noticeable that many people were going to the edge of the cliff and gazing out over the plain. Hectoro went, and had visions of an horizon of cattle grazing on lush grasses. Don Emmanuel saw groves of avocados, reminding him that back in the village the little boys used to steal his fruit and then try to sell it back to him. Remedios saw that indeed it was a plateau, and conceived of it as a line of self-defence in the event of attack from the east, and as a place of tactical withdrawal if the assault were from the west. Doña Constanza and Gonzago went out there in the sunset, and dangled their legs over the edge. ‘Gonzito,’ she said, ‘there is a lot of privacy down there. Remember how we used to make purple earthquakes under the trees and behind the waterfall?’
‘Fine days,’ replied her lover. ‘One day we will go down there and find a place with no ants to chew our backsides, and not under a tree either, so that we are not shat upon by birds, and we will make purple earthquakes all over again, and shout as much as we like.’
‘I am sick of falling out of the hammock,’ she said, ‘even though it was amusing to begin with.’
‘One day we will make a decent bed, and one day we will go down there and have no need of one.’
And so it was that, much to his gratification, Profesor Luis found that people were coming to him and asking, ‘What do you need for this machine?’ and an improbable stockpile of heterogeneous articles began to accumulate at the edge of the precipice, some found lying about inexplicably in the mountains, some scavenged from abandoned mine shafts, some prised away from the Indians in exchange for goats and teaspoons. There were huge iron hoops with pinchbolts, lengths of cable, steel wheels, pieces of crashed military helicopter, nuts and bolts with reversed threads in old British Standard sizes, a vast windlass that had to be transported by four bulls harnessed together, pitprops so old that they had turned to stone, beams from thosebrontosaurial machines that once crushed ore with the motion of nodding donkeys, together with their gearwheels, antique block and tackles made of polished rosewood with toledo rivets embossed with coats of arms, and a separate pile of unidentifiable objects that ‘might come in useful for something’. ‘All I need now is three thousand metres of rope as thick as a man’s arm,’ announced Profesor Luis, ‘and lots of wheels from cars, with the hubs and bearings if possible.’
The latter was easy if arduous. All that one had to do was send out long expeditions to the places where there had been roads through the mountains in more prosperous times, or even to Ipasueño. At the bottom of precipices, down below hairpin bends, hidden beneath scrub, half-immersed in cataracts, were the innumerable wrecks of the vehicles of the inebriated and the unbraked. There one could find cars, trucks, lorries and coaches of all vintages and in all states of decay, many of them complete with skeletons picked clean by grateful birds, all of them inhabited by pumas and margueys, coral snakes and iguanas, except for the ones in the rivers colonised by fish and kingfishers.
It was all made easier by Doña Constanza, who, after a fierce fight with her conscience, went to Profesor Luis and coyly held out a small elongated green book. ‘I still have my chequebook,’ she said, ‘and I would like to help you to buy what you cannot find.’
Profesor Luis went with Doña Constanza and Gonzago to Ipasueño. It was
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